Left over food to help RPS grow produce for students

Members of Volunteers in Sustainability hope their fall campaign, which aims to establish the campus’ third compost program, will allow campus food waste to be used to grow new produce for students.

“We have a different campaign every semester, and this semester, we looked around IU and thought, ‘How could we improve things?’” said sophomore Vianna Newman, co-coordinator of the Volunteers in Sustainability fall campaign. “IU doesn’t do much composting right now, and we wanted to educate people about that.”

Previous University compost programs have been successful since they began last school year at the Union Street Market and Collins Center’s Edmondson Dining Room, said Associate Director of RPS Environmental Operations Steve Akers.

Between 30 and 50 gallons of food waste, everything except meat and dairy, are transported from Union Street to Hilltop Garden and Nature Center each week, Akers said.

The waste from Collins is taken to the Students Producing Organics Under the Sun garden, located near Eighth Street and Fess Lane, where it sits in compost bins to decompose.

Volunteers in Sustainability is still in the process of planning the initiative with Akers’ help. A location for the new composting program has yet to be
solidified.

“We think the next place is the Landes Dining Room at Read,” Newman said.
She said it would follow a model similar to the program at Collins, where the staff separates the food wastes.

Akers said waste is collected in 5-gallon buckets in the Union Street Market kitchen and the dish room adjacent to Edmondson Dining Room.

Union Street practices pre-consumer composting, collecting the clippings from produce and bread that result from the preparation of things like salads and sandwiches.

Collins, on the other hand, participates in both pre- and post-consumer collection, where leftover food from students’ plates is collected in addition to the scraps resulting from meal preparation.

The process of composting, Hilltop Coordinator Lea Woodard said, allows food waste from campus dining halls to become the nutrients needed to grow produce that will be sent to RPS and food supplier Sodexo, Inc. for students to consume.

“We’re trying to have a complete cycle here,” she said.

Composting yields a natural and organic source of nutrients while simultaneously preventing waste from going into a landfill, she said.

Akers said implementing compost practices on campus has been challenging at times, between having to find volunteers, transporting the wastes and taking proper collection procedures to keep away unwelcome pests.

“You have to have an infrastructure,” he said. “It’s not always an easy thing to do.”

Eventually, Akers said, the hope is to educate students and get to the point in which all students can actively partake in the composting procedure.

“Right now, the mindset is not geared toward composting on campus,”
Akers said.

Ideally, he said, students will be able to separate food wastes themselves after each meal.

Newman said in addition to trash and recycling receptacles in the dining halls, there could eventually be a container specifically for food scraps.

To move closer to the goal, Newman said Volunteers in Sustainability will begin their fall campaign with programs to educate students, including a guest speaker and other conservation-focused events.

“We have hope in the future to make it happen when we know the system will be successful,” Akers said.